Urban gardeners, take note: on Saturday April 11th and Friday May 9th, San Francisco Recreation and Parks' Urban Agriculture Program will be hosting how-to garden seminars for the public.

The seminars, on composting (at the Page Street community garden, 438 Page St.) and edible garden basics (at the Golden Gate Park CommUNITY Garden, 780 Frederick St.), respectively, are the last two in a series that Rec and Parks offered this spring. Edible garden basics is slated to cover fruits and vegetables, and how to grow them in the city.

The Urban Agriculture Program is a relatively new effort by city Rec & Parks to provide education, advocacy and resources for urban gardeners, covering everything from making better compost to how to start and operate a city-sponsored community garden in your neighborhood.

The UAP was piloted in January of 2014, partly as a mechanism for managing the city's growing community garden roster and partly as a way to manage resources and education on urban gardening. Nearly a year ago, Rec & Parks quietly opened the Urban Agriculture resource center at the 780 Frederick St. location to offer materials, including compost, mulch and soil for new plots and gardeners.

780 Frederick, now brought into the fold of Rec & Parks as the Golden Gate Park CommUNITY Gardens, was until recent years in the midst of a drawn-out dispute between HANC, which had operated a community garden and recycling center on the spot, and Rec & Parks.

The location now hosts spots for 170 urban gardeners in shared and single-gardener plots. Applicants who'd like to get in line for a plot at 780 Frederick can email ggpcommunitygarden [dot] plots {at} gmail [dot] com.

The classes are a (gently) suggested $5 donation, and offered on a first-come, first-served basis: reserve your spot the Monday before a class at rpd [dot] urbanag {at} sfgov [dot] org, and find more information about each seminar here.